Monday, April 04, 2016

UN CENSORS ISRAELI EXHIBITION

A special exhibition initiated by Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations with the organization StandWithUs and expected to open on Monday at the UN headquarters, was partially censored by the international body this weekend.

Three out of 13 displays put together for the exhibition were disqualified by the UN including one about Jerusalem, another about Israeli Arabs and a third about Zionism.

The Jerusalem poster presents the city as the spiritual and physical capital of the Jewish People. It shows pictures of holy sites and states that “The Jewish people are indigenous to Israel and have maintained a continuous presence in the land since 1000 BC. Jerusalem has been the center and focus of Jewish life and religion for more than three millennia and is holy to Christians and Muslims as well.”

The display on Israeli Arabs explains that they are “the largest minority in Israel, making up 20 percent of Israel’s population” and describes them as “equal citizens under the law in Israel.”

Finally, the third display defines Zionism as “the liberation movement of the Jewish people, who sought to overcome 1,900 years of oppression and regain self-determination in their indigenous homeland.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon demanded on Sunday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reverse the decision to disqualify these posters and said that “by disqualifying an exhibition about Zionism the UN is undermining the very existence of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.”

The Israeli mission pointed out that UN General Assembly reversed in 1991 a resolution equating Zionism with racism, which had passed 16 years earlier and that with the decision to censor the displays “the UN is de-facto enacting this old resolution, defining Zionism and Jerusalem as ‘unacceptable,’ and disqualifying key elements of the heritage of the Jewish people.”

Unfortunately, I think that reversal was in name only. The irony is that even though this particular exhibition says Jerusalem is "holy" to Muslims, it still wasn't enough for them, and they censored it anyway. I'd stronly advise putting such an exhibition elsewhere.